This woman was the best Merida I saw at the con. She certainly had the best hair. On top of that she spoke with a perfect Scottish lilt to her voice. Well done, cosplayer!
The voice took her cosplay from costume to character. In animation, it's even more important because you are creating a reality that the audience should get lost in.
Yes, this is another in a seemingly neverending series of Tad talking about his pilot without talking about it. So let's talk auditions.
Wait, before auditions comes "the sides." How they got that name goes back to Elizabethan theater but it just means the audition copy for a given character. But there's a little bit of an art to writing a good side... assuming I write good ones.
Generally lines are pulled from the script but you should rework them as necessary to make them self contained. The actor shouldn't have to wonder what the character is talking about. You want the necessary character information to be self evident.
Don't make them too long. You will be listening to a LOT of actors performing your golden prose which, believe me, won't sound golden after a few hours of auditions. Find the lines that speak to the heart of the character whether they're a calloused barkeep or a sweet old lady with the dead cat in her purse.
Try not to use exposition lines unless the character has a distinct attitude toward that exposition. An actor is going to have a hard time showing what they can do if they are just delivering Google map directions. But if it's a guy giving those directions to a jaw droppingly beautiful woman dripping sex, the performance of those lines might be hilarious.
We were auditioning for an eleven minute pilot but casting for a potential series. That resulted in the sides for one character being several times longer than the actual role. But you need to know the actor can handle the reoccuring character who might have a bigger role in other episodes.
Not every show is cast in this way. This is the way if often works and in particular, this is the way my pilot was cast.
The sides are sent out to agencies with a logline about the show - "It's the story of a scullery maid with dreams of grandeur and the squad of talking mice and birds who will help make those dreams happen." Maybe a drawing of the character (which pains you because this is often so early in the process that there's no final design yet) and a short description of the character, "Stinky is the least intelligent of the group but has the biggest heart. He is also an absolute coward... unless there is cheese involved."
The net is cast wide at this point. Disney casting is constantly searching for actors and develops a list of people they want to try out. They also add the voice over professionals who they know can deliver almost anything needed. But if they ask an agency about one actor, the agency is allowed to submit others who they think might also fit the part. Some agencies set up a recording booth/room/closet and have their clients in to read the audition copy. Others leave it to the actor-- we heard a couple laptop auditions that sounded like they were recorded on Macs outside of Starbucks. Some voice actors have their own studios. The quality of sound varies greatly but you're listening for the acting. These are undirected auditions. The actors are guided only by the lines they see in front of them and that short character description.
In this case, Casting did the first culling. For the eight parts or so we had, they got hundreds of tracks. I was positive a specific actress was going to send in an audition and mentioned didn't see her on the list. They sent me the track and I thanked them for their excellent taste because she didn't understand the part at all. I'm sure I was spared a lot of pain. Even so, we had more than a dozen auditions for every part in our pilot.
Since I'm both the writer and Executive Producer of the show, I listen to all the tracks, pick my favorites for each character and state why in an email to everyone concerned. There's usually more than one pick because you hear potential and assume things will get better with some direction. The Disney Jr. execs then made their picks, happily many of them overlapped with mine, and the directed auditions were set up.
This much shorter list of candidates is brought into the studio so we can control the sound quality. More names are added, perhaps because the auditions for a particular character were weak or perhaps the auditions gave us new casting ideas. Also included in these auditions are actors who are at a higher level in Hollywoodland, people who might be considered "stars."
FANS OF VOICE ACTORS TAKE NOTE: it's about the acting. An on camera actor is not stealing food from the mouth of the voiceover talent who's been in the business for years. They are both actors and there's too much at stake to give a major role to someone just because they're a name that might garner some publicity. Plus, the kid audience probably doesn't care about a "name." We are looking for the actors that bring the characters to life.
Although I've voice directed in the past, I rather have a professional voice director work with the actors so I can concentrate on listening to them. I usually don't even greet the actors although I had to make exceptions for Rob Paulsen and Jim Cummings. C'mon! Whose not gonna trade hugs with Steelbeak and Darkwing Duck? Even when the actors are in the booth, I'm generally looking at the copy and thinking cartoon character, not staring at the person on the other side of the glass.
The point is NOT to direct the actors to do the performance you heard in your head when you wrote it. The point is to find out what they can add to it. Not words, although there's plenty of adlibbing which I'll talk about soon, but performance. Can they discover some humor you didn't know was there? Do they get the emotion of the piece? Do they SURPRISE you in some way?
Adlibbing: We're always open to it as long as the meaning of the copy remains. On the other hand, if you adlib more than you read, I don't know if you can actually do the character I wrote. This is especially true of the zaniest of characters. If the actor's audition is three times the length of the others, what will that mean in the eleven minute episode where I'm fighting each tick of the clock.
One actress did an adlib on top of a scripted joke. It was a 1, 2, 3 gag where the first two lines set an expectation and the third surprises. "It was the most interesting aquarium tank I had ever seen. It had dolphins, sharks and five of the nuns from Sound of Music." She added the equivalent to "And I thought I should hold up my rosary to the glass." Okay, playing off the nun thing but sort of deflates the original gag. The situation isn't about nuns. But she took a risk. Points for that. But she took the exact same "risk" in her two retakes. She had written her adlibs ahead of time. Doesn't have the same impact the third time.
At the end of a long day we got another "name" actor. We had few earlier, of different levels of celebrity. She was called in for one character but had wanted to try out for the lead which I had no problem with. Completely nailed it for me. What a great way to end a day. She had analyzed every line, knew when to change energy, knew the right notes to play. I was delighted. Of course, that's in the room.
At home it can be different. You listen to the tracks free of the visuals of the wild actor gesticulating or cracking jokes. Away from the relief over hearing something surprising at the end of a long day. You listen with a fresh point of view. I still liked the actress but it wasn't the night and day choice I remembered because the auditions are edited. The best version of each line is cut together so the weak performances sound much better.
Then the same thing happens as before. I make my picks but with fewer alternates. There were a couple of characters who could go in different directions depending on the actor chosen. I pointed those cases out. But I made my selects and stated why. It then went to my Disney Jr. partners.
Me and the boss saw things different ways. There was plenty of overlap. We agreed on most of the picks. And in every case where my first pick wasn't chosen, the pick was still a strong one. Taster's choice, a different voice tweaks the character in a slightly different way. But we disagreed on the lead character. The actress who delighted me, who made me excited about writing the character in a broader way was not the choice of the head exec.
There was no real compromise position. I liked one actress, she liked another. I made my case but ultimately told her she was the boss and could make the call. Bless her, she let me have my pick. Best executive evah! At every step of the way they've made sure I had the tools I needed to make the show in my head. Now realize, if she doesn't think the voice fits when the animation comes back, we'll be replacing the actress with another voice in post but I'm confident this performer will, well, perform.
And that's what I got about casting. -- Tad
